Star Force: Origin (SF24)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  But he wasn’t out here to fight, he was our here to skulk, and as the day gradually transitioned into night he finally began to approach the largest piece of the gargantuan, which was buried in the ground and sticking up at a 45 degree angle, forming an impromptu mountain on the other side of which Mark’s skeet had gone down…which was where the remaining units of the Nestafar army were also camped out, including the super dragon.

  The walkers had been coming around the massive heap on the east side, so Boen felt he had the best chance by going west and hiding in the debris as he moved, but he didn’t get very far into the junk yard before he heard a flap of wings and ducked under cover. A few moments later a rifle-toting Nestafar soldier flew by a few meters off the ground, weaving its way through the debris canyons, obviously on patrol…meaning Boen had to be extra careful from here on out.

  It took him another 2 hours just to get to the edge of the debris mountain where he could see down onto the Nestafar camp…which was, in fact, a camp. Somehow the enemy had brought portable buildings with them and had several set up in a ring around which the walkers were parked. The big one was on the south side of the camp and facing north, looking down on all the smaller ones, and Boen could barely make out a slew of protomechs parked around their feet, but the infantry were too small to see, even with his helmet vision enhancements.

  The infantry patrolling the debris field were another matter. Those he could see clearly, the trick was in keeping them from seeing him. Fortunately there were many places to hide, but there wasn’t many where he could advance more than a few dozen meters at a time before he’d have to backtrack or go laterally to maneuver around a piece of junk he couldn’t climb over, or couldn’t risk climbing over and being seen.

  Partway through his trek he began to think Kara was right, that he was just wasting his time and recklessly putting himself at risk, but a part of him just couldn’t let go. He had to see this through for Mark’s sake, even if there wasn’t anything he could do other than confirm that he was, in fact, dead.

  Suddenly there were wing flaps over top of him and he glanced up just in time to see the feet of a Nestafar appear a meter over his head from behind a piece of debris. The enemy didn’t move on, but rather tipped its rifle down after a moment of shocked realization and fired.

  Boen moved reflexively, equally surprised, and got a hand on its foot by the time it pulled the trigger. The plasma blast hit him in the right shoulder, melting away the top layer of armor as he yanked the flying soldier out of the air and pulled it down to the ground, bringing around his right fist and imbedding it in its torso twice before yanking away the rifle and turning it back on its owner.

  He buried the muzzle in its chest and fired, hoping to diminish the sound of the shot, then he scurried off, leaving the both the corpse and weapon behind as he tried to find a new hole to hide in in case the weaponsfire drew others.

  Which it did a few minutes later. Tucked under a piece of flat hull that had half imbedded into the ground forming a lean-to with other debris piled on top, Boen waited and listened as several other Nestafar flew in and around the area. He had only a narrow line of sight, but he could hear them moving about, searching for the target that had downed the patrol, of which they had to have found by now.

  Boen waited for a very long time, well past the last audible wing flap, before he slowly crawled out of his hiding place and further into the debris field. He kept low and moved very slowly, hoping to keep his visual movement down so he could blend in with the rest of the random junk lying all over the place. With the cover of night he hoped that tactic would be successful, essentially ‘playing rock’ as he crept in towards the giant mountain of refuse.

  When he could he kept an eye on the enemy camp, but most of the time it was obscured from view. Twice he had to lay flat and play dead when patrols flew by, both of which missed him, fortunately, because there was no available holes to jump into had he wanted to. When he finally got to the crash site he was able to slip inside what was left of the ship’s corridors and crawl through the crumpled passageways, taking him out of sight of the aerial patrols.

  The portion of the ship he was climbing through, however, was totally torqued out of proportion. The hallways were twisted, bent, smashed, and every other word imaginable that was an antonym for ‘straight.’ Boen found himself doubling back multiple times as he tried to make his way forward, not so much ‘up’ the mountain but through it, hoping to find a hole on the other side to climb out of or at least look through. Mark’s skeet had impacted near the bottom of the pile, yet inside several ringing pieces of debris. It had disappeared down inside the trash heap, but at the time Boen couldn’t get a good view as to exactly where, for he was dodging a mass of anti-air fire.

  The grey skeet Mark had been piloting at the time was going to be difficult to find, as opposed to the normal gold/chrome version of his personal craft. In the chaos of the battle and Mark’s absence, his own skeet had been taken by another pilot, one that had not fared so well, shot down by the Nestafar fighters early on. After that there had been a swapping of pilots and everyone grabbing what available craft there were without regards to the previous owners or Clan colors.

  The grey one he had been flying was one of the spares/basic models that hadn’t been assigned to any one pilot, and unfortunately the coloration was nearly identical to the wreckage of the cargo ship. Boen had mentally tagged the location he’d seen him go down in, but the more hours that passed and the more he thought it over the fuzzier the memory got.

  The various creaks and moans coming from the remains of the ship also worried him. He wasn’t walking/climbing through a stable structure and the pit of his stomach kept falling out every time he heard a tremor above, thinking that the whole thing was going to smash down on top of him. He also wondered if Mark had been crushed under debris, or maybe was still trapped inside his cockpit cocoon, unable to pop the hatch because he was buried underneath tons of rubble.

  Every possible scenario flashed through Boen’s mind multiple times as he searched for a way through the crashed ship. By the time he finally saw a beam of light coming down into his current area he realized that it must be morning already and was grateful for even a small sign that he was near the other side.

  The hole was only fist-sized and punctured through by a beam from outside, but it did give him a view down the slope. He pushed his head up against the hole and tried to look down to where he thought the skeet had hit, but he didn’t have the right angle.

  Another tremor shook the structure, this one much louder and stronger with the epicenter close by. Boen walked off from the hole and kept moving, knowing that the sooner he found a way out onto the southern slope the better he’d feel about potential cave-ins, but then he’d be exposed to virtually every gun in the Nestafar camp…which appeared to still be holding defensive positions. Why they hadn’t hit the base again he didn’t know, but he was glad Kara and the others were getting a breather to reestablish their defenses.

  A second tremor shook the structure and Boen could clearly hear a piece fall down with a crash, as well as several Nestafar voices off in the distance. The Archon pulled his plasma rifle off his back, then thought better of it. He switched it out for his stinger pistol, knowing that raising an alarm was probably the worst thing he could do right now, so if he had to shoot one or more of them, quiet was definitely the way to go.

  Boen followed the occasional sounds through the remains, again having to double back several times to eventually end up traveling in a straight line. He knew he was getting close when he could hear the whine of a walker’s joints, then a giant limb thrust through a wall two sections over from where he was standing. There was a bit of a clear airway through the broken walls, enough for him to see the sunlight shoot in around the tip of the walker’s chrome leg, then the limb bent and dragged a huge chunk of the structure out with it, exposing the interior to more daylight.

  Boen backtracked immediately, then tried to flan
k the breach point, having to move through the labyrinth at its pace and continually reminding himself not to get flustered. Flustered Archons were dead Archons, as the old saying went, so he forced himself to focus on the task at hand and eventually found a way around.

  Just as he was walking through the last section before it opened up onto a partially sunlight, cockeyed room his feet were lassoed together and he fell forward onto his knees…suddenly finding the tip of a plasma rifle in his face.

  It quickly pulled back and the pressure on his legs released, just in time for Boen to look up and stare into an identical, yet green helmet a few inches away from him.

  He was about to say something but an armored finger shot up in front of the helmet, indicating that he be silent. It followed with several Archon hand signals, telling Boen that there were troops nearby.

  The Archon got to his feet and responded in kind, noticing crushed plates on Mark’s armor along his left leg. He pointed to it and Mark responded with a ‘snapping’ motion, indicating that the bone had been broken and his leg was out of action.

  Putting all questions aside, Boen signaled to Mark to wait, then began walking off a few meters in other directions, trying to get a feel for where the Nestafar were without leaving the trailblazer behind. He had wisely tucked himself up under a shelf-like section of wall that had blown out and was just high enough for him to slide under while laying down, making for the perfect ambush hole.

  He wanted to use his suit to suit comm to talk to him, but if Mark had restricted himself to hand signals then there was probably a reason, so he responded in kind and kept the dialog to hands only. Around the next corner he heard footsteps and slinked up against the wall and waited…then grabbed the Nestafar by the throat as it appeared and shot it with his pistol in the chest twice, splattering green paint laden with stun energy on its ugly body before tossing it aside.

  Boen ducked around the corner, searching for any others but finding none. He pulled the unconscious enemy aside and stuffed it in a hole in the wall before he went back to Mark where he signaled that he had a way out.

  Mark nodded and reached out a hand, then bit down hard on his teeth as Boen dragged him out and up onto his one good foot, then he grabbed Mark’s arm and ducked his torso underneath, hefting him up into an uncomfortable fireman’s carry on top of his weapon’s rack, though the armor on Mark’s chest kept him from feeling the jabbing pressure. Boen kept his pistol in his right hand as he wrapped it around Mark’s good leg, trying to keep as much pressure off the bad one as possible, then in a crouching motion he carried him back the way he had come using his constantly updating battlemap to recall the route he had come in on.

  Boen moved Mark back a third of the way through the artificial mountain before he finally set him down and took his own helmet off, with Mark following suit. To Boen’s surprise his face was bloodied, though from what injury he couldn’t be sure.

  “You look pretty banged up, boss,” Boen whispered.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “What’s the condition of the base?”

  “Holding. The Nestafar pulled back and are camped just a little ways yonder. We busted up so many of their walkers I think it put a hold on their plans, but we’re low on skeets.”

  “What about the other entrances?”

  “We’ve secured the auxiliaries, but they’re gaining ground in the tunnel and we can’t stop them. They’ve only got the troops hiding in the tunnel, because we’ve cut them off outside, but they got a lot of protomechs in there along with the infantry.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know, could be through already if they caught a natural fissure. It took me forever to get here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Haven’t got you out yet, and we can’t go back in through the main doors either. They’re sealed up real good by now.”

  “Get a dropship to pick us up if we can get clear…assuming we have any left?”

  “That’s the plan, but we’ve got a long way to go and most of it is above ground…and they’ve got patrols roaming the debris.”

  “They’ve been after me ever since the crash. I dug out underneath the debris and tried to avoid attention but they found me halfway through. Couldn’t get at me with so much junk in the way, until they brought in one of the walkers and tried to crush me. Caught my leg, but I was able to pull free and find my way in here. It’s messed up pretty bad.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Fine as far as I know, why?”

  “Your face is bloody.”

  “It’s from my leg. I had to go upside down several times crawling and it seeped through my armor.”

  “You don’t sound like you’re in a lot of pain.”

  “Only when I move, right now it’s just numb.”

  “That’s a bad sign.”

  “I know, and my body’s run out of ambrosia, so I’ve got those headaches to deal with and not enough to speed up my healing, though as bad as it felt when it broke I think I’m going to need a regenerator.”

  “Which is up on the seda.”

  “Details,” Mark said sarcastically. “Let’s get moving.”

  “Don’t suppose we can chuck your armor.”

  “If you can get the Nestafar to agree to not shoot me, sure.”

  “Just saying, you’re fairly heavy,” he said, glancing around. “Reason for no comms?”

  “Just didn’t want to give them a signal to trace.”

  “Let’s keep it that way,” Boen said, rotating his helmet around in his hands. “We’re going to need every advantage that we can get.”

  Mark nodded. “Let’s go,” he said, putting his helmet back on and reaching a hand up for Boen to grab.

  4

  Ashley knelt next to the wall silently, pressing her ear against the bare rock as the other Archons and Scionate around her kept absolutely still.

  “I hear it,” she said softly, looking up at Ske’rar. “They’re digging parallel to us.”

  “We only have one choice if we wish to prevent them from breaking through,” the Scionate said in a frustrated snarl. “To go outside and fight our way back in…unless you’ve learned how to walk through rock.”

  “He’s right,” Chase-918 agreed.

  Ashley sighed then glanced up at the other Archon from her kneeling position. “You up for some running?”

  “Always,” he said eagerly.

  “Four man team, me, Chase, Less, and Terry. Everyone else keep slowing them down,” she said, standing up and walking back along the tunnel and accelerating up into a jog with the other three joining her.

  Ske’rar also followed. “I will come as well.”

  “So long as you can keep up, because we’re going on foot,” Ashley said, gradually increasing her pace.

  “Why not use a transport?”

  “Because I think the only reason the big boys stopped hammering on the front door is because they think they can get through the back one. If we land outside their tunnel entrance and pour in troops they might not be so confident and resume the main attack.”

  “Regardless, we only delay the inevitable.”

  “The more time we have the better, so let’s get what we can.”

  “Very well, I will meet you topside,” the Scionate said, jumping over the Archons and landing in front of them lithely before sprinting off far faster than the Humans were capable of running.

  “Showoff,” Ashley muttered.

  Boen knelt down and gently dumped Mark off his back, setting him up against what was left of the corridor wall and moving forward a few steps to get a look at the exterior of the debris mountain. He poked his helmeted head out and looked around, seeing one patrolling Nestafar in the distance as its wingtips flipped up over top of one of the many junk piles dotting the area. It was now midday and brightly lit…and he still wasn’t sure how he was going to get Mark back to base out in the open.

  The Arch
on looked around, trying to mentally plot out their first move after leaving the interior ‘structure.’ Part of him was glad to be on the way out because he was constantly worried that it was going to fall down on their heads, but even with his agility and speed, avoiding the patrols was going to be difficult and he was far less game carrying Mark on his back.

  He spotted the last bit of cover he had used on the way in, but quickly nixed that path. He needed more, somewhere he could lay Mark down while he moved around, figuring he’d have to fight past at least some of the patrols. That said, the best of all available bad locations looked to be a slight overhang off to his right, down low enough for Mark to crawl under. It wouldn’t hold two of them, however, so he needed to plan this out as much as possible before they started to move.

  Boen took a few steps outside, getting a better view with and listening for the sound of more patrols. Skulking low to the ground he moved out halfway towards where he was planning on putting Mark down and tried to find some place to hide himself, seeing a few possibles that had partial cover that he could duck back and forth between.

  That was going to have to do, because there wasn’t much else to work with.

  He headed back to the crack in the starship hull jutting up out of the landscape and ducked inside, bringing Mark out a moment later and walking as fast as he could down to the impromptu blind. He laid him down as gently as he could and the trailblazer pulled himself underneath as Boen ducked off behind cover. From there he bounced around from point to point, looking for another place to stash Mark as they began their long and hazardous journey back towards the base while the Nestafar patrols continued to sweep the area.